This past week, some of our nation celebrated the day of the girl.  On Friday afternoon – my two younger daughters also celebrated the day of the girl by having a small Girl Scout bridging and award ceremony.

My youngest daughter earned her Bronze Award in Girl Scouts.  This award is earned by girls at the Junior level of Girl Scouts and entails a plan they put into action to help others.  They have to put in a certain number of hours on planning, talking to the community and putting their plan into action – all on a volunteer basis.  If there’s a need for funding, they have to find a way to earn that, too.  DD#3 chose to help our local AGAPE room at the church who sponsored our Girl Scout troop.  They already had a lot of clothes and small appliances for the room but the director wanted her to set up a corner in the room for kids – is one thing for needy parents to go shopping but is an added bonus if the kids can pick out something special for themselves, too.  Our daughter raided our bookshelves and cleaned out her bedroom and set up her little corner in the AGAPE room with those items, plus items that were donated.  She also volunteered to help once a month when the AGAPE room was open.  My mother-in-law worked with our daughter to make all of this happen.

Our middle daughter earned her Silver Award.  This is the next step in Girl Scout awards, earned by a Cadette Girl Scout.  She chose to help a local animal rescue place by making dog treats for their dogs.  She had to do all of the things that were mentioned above for our younger daughter, but she had to put in 50 volunteer hours instead of 20.  The kicker of the Silver (and Gold) awards is that she has to make her project sustainable.  This means, long after she’s earned her award, the project she put into play has to continue.  To make this happen, she gave a presentation to the ladies at my mother-in-law’s church by sharing the recipe she and her dad came up with for all natural dog treats – and then she showed them how to make them.  The ladies at the church agreed to make four dozen dog treats a month.  Then, she got to go out to the rescue ranch and present the treats to the dogs.  This was the part she liked the most 🙂   She will continue to make a few batches of dog treats a month, as well, in the coming year.

I couldn’t be more proud of my daughters.  Girl Scouts, at the local level, isn’t about politics.  It’s not about who is allowed to be in the troop or not.  It’s about the GIRLS and a goal of helping them learn leadership through a great program.  I can tell you that I have been a leader for 10+ years and each of my three daughters learned more about kindness, compassion and leadership through their Girl Scout affiliation than they learned just about anywhere else. 

We will continue on.  Both of these girls will be in the same troop next year.  DD#2 will be working toward her Gold Award, the highest award for a Girl Scout to achieve; and DD#3 will be working toward her Silver Award.  At this point, they still love their time as Girl Scouts and as long as they continue loving it, we will find a way to facilitate them moving forward!